If you have not yet mastered using the virtual Google assistant on your phone or smart devices around your home. You might be interested in this quick guide, which shows you how to set up OK Google on a variety of different devices as well as providing a list of some useful commands to help you get up and running as quickly as possible.
Once setup to start the Google Assistant, you need to use a phrase such as “Hey Google” or “OK Google” after which the virtual assistant will start listening to your voice command. A few years back, Google removed the need to trigger the wake-up command before every command and now you can set your Google Assistant to remain listening even after you have finished your first command. Although if after eight seconds no second command has been issued, your assistant will automatically shut down and will need to be reawakened once again using the Hey or OK command.
It is also worth remembering that the continued conversation feature will not continue when the device you are communicating with is being used for a phone call, is playing media or a timer or alarm is currently being triggered. The Continued Conversation feature is turned off by default and can be easily turned on using the Home or Assistant apps on your phone or tablet. Simply open the Google app and:
1. Tap the three vertical dots to enter the Settings menu
2. Select More
3. The Preferences and the option for Continued Conversation
If you haven’t yet enabled Continued Conversation for your Google Assistant, we highly recommend you do as it makes using devices around your home and the virtual assistant much more natural. If you haven’t yet set out your Google Assistant on your phone, tablet or smartphone devices, you will find instructions for the most popular below.
Setting up OK Google on an Android
First, make sure that your Android tablet or phone is running Android 5.0 or higher and that you have installed at least version 6.13 of the official Google App. It is also worth mentioning that you will also need 1.0 GB of memory and Google Play services.
1. Update your Android operating system to the latest available, if possible
2. Update the official Google app to the latest version currently available
3. Open the services menu on your Google Play app and install if necessary
4. Enable the Developer Mode
5. Go to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer options > Memory to check that you have over 1 GB of memory available. This will be listed under Total Memory
It is also worth mentioning that you can set OK Google to a variety of languages depending on your preference by going to Settings > System > Languages & Input > Languages. Here you can select the default language that will be used by the virtual Google assistant.
Set up OK Google on iOS devices
Yes it can be done if you so wish. If you would like to use the virtual Google assistant on your Apple devices alongside the Apple Siri virtual assistant, this is possible by downloading the Google Assistant application from the official Apple App Store. Make sure you have iOS 10 or higher installed. Once installed, you can use OK Google to set reminders, receive answers to questions, find directions and more.
1. Open the Google Assistant app on your iPhone or iPad and signing with your Google account details
2. Select Continue on the Google Partners page
3. Followed by Allow when asked if you would like to enable the ability to send notifications or Decline if you do not want to get alerts from Google Assistant
4. The app will also ask you whether you would like to receive updates from Google about new features offers and the like, this is entirely optional
5. The app will then ask you to access your microphone, which is required if you’re going to use voice commands with OK Google
Once installed on your Apple iOS device using the Google Assistant requires a little work as Apple by default installs Apple Siri. The Google app needs to be open and on the screen of your iPhone or iPad to work. To make this easier when you need it, we recommend setting up a shortcut voice command within Siri to open the Google App and access the virtual assistant from Google search as “Hey Siri, Google Assistant” or similar.
Those of you that would prefer to use Google Assistant with your Apple devices will be pleased to know you can also set up OK Google to be triggered from your Apple Watch. Simply go to the settings app on your watch select Personalisation and turn on “OK Google” detection.
Now that you have enabled OK Google and the virtual Google assistant on all your devices, you can use voice commands to help you organize your day, request answers to certain questions find directions on Google Maps and more. Below are a list of a few OK Google commands you might find useful. To start, proceed with the question by saying “Hey Google” or “OK Google” to wake the virtual assistant and then choose your command :
Useful Google Assistant commands
“What’s a good restaurant nearby?”
“What’s my commute like?”
“Will it rain tomorrow?”
“Help me relax.”
“Send [say contact name] $20.”
“Request $10 from [say contact name] for dinner tonight.”
“What is [name] stock price?”
“What is [name] trending at?”
“How is [say the name of the team] doing?”
“Results from [say the name of the team] last game.”
“When is [say the name of the team] next game?”
“Did [say the name of the team] win the last game?”
“Show me my messages.”
“Text [name of contact] [say the message].”
“Send an email to [say the contact name] [say what you want to write in the email].”
“Call [say the name of the contact].”
“Call [say the name of the contact] on speakerphone.”
“Note to self [dictate note].”
“What’s this song?”
“Play some music.”
“Create/Add/Schedule a meeting.”
“Create a calendar event.”
“Schedule an event [say the title of the event] then [say the day and time].”
“What’s my next appointment?”
“Show me the appointments for [say the day].”
“Set an alarm for [say time].”
“Set an alarm in [say how many minutes, or hours].”
“Set a repeating alarm for [say the label].”
“Set a repeating alarm for [say the label] at [say the time].”
“Add a reminder.”
“Remind me to [say what you want to be reminded of] at [say the time].”
These just a few of the commands you can use with the Google virtual assistant. For more assistance jump over to the official Google Support site.
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